THE MISSIXG LINK IX OUR STOCK HUSBANDRY. 79 



Our corporation came to the conclusion that the trouble was 

 that a great many of these farmers were not naturally adapted 

 to dairy work, and if we could induce them to take up stock hus- 

 bandry in general, pursuing not less dairying but raising more 

 horses and more cattle, we should be doing something to stimu- 

 late business along our line. 



Here in this part of the State of Maine you are making a great 

 success of potato growing. You are making money out of it, 

 and it would be presumption on my part to come over here and 

 give you any advice on the matter because I do not know of any 

 section in the whole country where the people are doing better 

 than you are. so far as potato growing is concerned. If you 

 could go on inimitably in that direction no doubt you would 

 make lots of money, but a disquieting element fortunately has 

 come in. Experts say that in the light of history your land will 

 surely run out as it has in other places under such special work. 

 From shipping off the raw products of the farm and not feeding 

 enough of them, the fertility of your land, the supply of vegetable 

 matter in the soil, will be gradually exhausted. What are you 

 going to do about it? This is a dairy convention. You are 

 urged to go into dairying as a specialty, and quite rightly. I 

 believe there is more money to be made per acre, if your land is 

 adapted to it, from the dairy cow as a specialty than in any other 

 way. But I am inclined to the opinion that here, as across the 

 line, we are up against a condition of affairs where we need — the 

 missing link — in this business. The great majority of our men 

 over there who are selling hay and grain in large quantities are 

 not men who will immediately take kindly to the proposition of 

 milking cows, and keeping dairy cows for all their stock. 1 am 

 not here to argue that the special dairy cow is not the best 

 monev maker, but I want to sav she is not likelv to be used with 

 success unless the man who uses her gives her special dairy food 

 and treatment. Our observ^-ation is that this man, the dairy 

 specialist, the man who loves cows, understands their needs and 

 the conditions of success is the missing link in our stock hus- 

 bandry. Our people are not sprung from a stock raising ances- 

 try, they do not inherit the love for and delight in good cattle 

 and other stock that characterizes some peoples, for instance, 

 those of the British Isles and Denmark, where from the highest 

 families in the land to the lowliest, there is an inborn affection 



